Myanmar death toll soars

• IBTimes RSS
• Print
• E-Mail
• digg
• Del.icio.us

In the last 50 years, only two Asian cyclones have exceeded Nargis in terms of human cost - a 1970 storm that killed 500,000 people in neighbouring Bangladesh, and another that killed 143,000 in 1991, also in Bangladesh.

However, with an estimated 2.5 million people clinging to survival in the delta, and the military government refusing to admit large-scale outside relief, disaster experts say Nargis' body count could yet rise dramatically.

Cases of cholera, endemic to much of the former Burma, have been found although the number of outbreaks are no more than would normally be seen at this time of year, health officials said.

Meanwhile, the military, which has ruled unchecked for the last 46 years, continues to insist it is capable of handling aid distribution, seemingly out of fear that an influx of foreigners might loosen its vice-like grip on power.

With heavy tropical downpours also hampering the aid effort, the generals took Yangon-based diplomats into the delta to see the army's relief operations, although it was expected to be a stage-managed and highly sanitised trip.

One envoy who went on a similar tour of a storm-hit district of Yangon, the former capital, described the neat rows of tents on display as "happy camps".

In the delta, the junta will have to work much harder to keep the diplomats away from the destitute.

Near the town of Kunyangon, columns of men, women and children stretched for miles alongside the road, begging in the mud and rain for scraps of food or clothing from the occasional passing aid vehicle.

"The situation has worsened in just two days," one aid volunteer said as children mobbed his vehicle, their grimy hands reaching through the window for something to eat.

• 1
• 2
• 3